


Finding Screamo

by laurus_nobilis



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Canon levels of booze, Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 06:58:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8834812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/pseuds/laurus_nobilis
Summary: Frank and Sadie's day is interrupted by a ghost fish looking for his son.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smolder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolder/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! Going with your prompt about Frank and Sadie doing their job, I picked one of the joke episode titles and ran with it.

There was, of course, a knock on the door. It never failed – this always happened when they were about to have a drink, which, to be fair, made up a rather large proportion of their time. Frank couldn't say he was surprised by this development.

But it was still extremely annoying. Judging from Sadie's long-suffering expression, and he was a great judge of Sadie's expressions if he might say so himself, she agreed.

"Frank, darling, we really should do something about that door."

"Does 'doing something' include 'opening it'?" he asked. "Because if so, I'd rather not."

"Oh, no, no! What I had in mind was more like, say, soundproofing it. They do that for doors, don't they?"

"They do, love. But I'm not sure it stops people from knocking on them."

"Then we should soundproof ourselves! A few more of these and I am sure that we will not notice the world around us at all."

"Excellent thinking as always, my dear. Now, let me just pour-" He didn't finish the sentence, interrupted by another knock. He did, however, finish pouring their drinks. This was not the time to lose sight of priorities. "Now, that is just rude."

"Perhaps we should open it," Sadie said. "Just this once."

"Open the door?" he repeated, horrified. "What good would that do?"

"Well, for starters, they might stop knocking."

"True. But they might also begin _talking_ , which is far worse."

Just as he spoke, as if on cue, there was a third knock.

"Determined, aren't they?" Sadie frowned, and then she nodded with determination of her own. "Let's see what they want. The sooner we deal with it, the sooner we can make them leave."

"All right, Sadie-love! You know I am always for telling people to go away. Shall we find out who is bothering us today?"

He opened the door with a flourish, to rather anticlimactic results. In fact, it took him a few moments to see what was on the other side. Then the reason for his confusion became clear: this particular annoyance was far smaller than their usual unwanted visitors.

"Oh, look, Frank! A fishy! A cute translucent fishy!"

"I'm a ghost," he said. His voice was far deeper than one would expect from an apparition his size.

"A cute translucent _talking_ ghost fishy!"

"I have no opinion on his cuteness," said Frank, "but I have to admit I'm rather curious about how he managed to knock."

"Sheer force of will, okay?" he replied, and given their line of work that might not even have been sarcasm. "I have an urgent problem. My name is Martin-"

"No one asked."

"But it does make conversation easier," Sadie intervened, conciliatory as ever. "Tell us, Martin, why do you need our help?"

"My son is missing," he said. "I haven't seen him for days. We haunt the Aquarium together, but now… I just can't find him."

"Oh! He's a ghost too!" Frank interrupted him. "That's a relief, then. I thought we would need to have a talk about the life expectancy of fish."

"I was not looking forwards to that," Sadie admitted. "I suppose I would have needed a drink to deal with that conversation. In fact, I need one right now."

Frank obliged, and poured a drink for himself too. And then one more each for good measure.

"According to your story, he simply disappeared, then," he said. "Are you sure he didn't just move on? Ghosts tend to do that, given time."

"I'm very sure," said Martin. "Nothing special or different happened. It was a day like any other, and then all of a sudden, my little Screamo wasn't there anymore."

"You named your son _Screamo_?" Frank asked. "Are you sure he didn't run away? To change his name?"

"What? He would never run away! We're very happy!"

"Now, now, don't worry. We'll find your son," Sadie assured him. "The Aquarium was the last place you saw him, yes?"

"Yes, but I'm sure he's not there. I've looked for him all over."

"But it's a very important part of detecting, you see. Going back to the scene of the crime. Detectives do that."

Frank smiled to himself as he refilled their glasses. He knew were this was going.

"Sadie-love," he said. "Do you by any chance want to see the Aquarium?"

"With all the fishies!" She clapped her hands, without spilling a single drop of her drink. She was talented like that. "And the not fishies! All those rays and eels and walruses and turtles and-"

"Yes, yes. I know what the Aquarium looks like!" Martin snapped. He somehow pulled off an exasperated look, which was quite a feat for two different reasons: that he had all the range of expressions of a fish, and that he was being the exasperating one. "Will that really help?"

"You heard the lady," said Frank. "Very important detective work. Off we go!"

Nothing relevant or even remotely interesting happened on their way to the Aquarium, except for the slight challenge of pouring drinks on a moving taxi. Once they did arrive, Sadie spent a good half hour or so pointing at everything she deemed cute. Frank thought the walrus was a rather questionable choice, but he could at least respect its moustache.

"This has nothing to do with my son!" Martin complained, floating behind her as she walked around the place. "You are supposed to be professionals."

"No," Frank corrected him, "we are supposed to be _experts_. 'Professionals' implies we are getting paid, which we are not."

"Which means we can spend our time in any way we please," Sadie added. "But don't worry. We'll get this over in a minute, now. Screamo, dear, would you be so kind to come and say hello?"

As soon as she finished speaking, a new, smaller translucent fish appeared in front of them. Other than his size, he looked exactly like his father. Not that it was a surprise. Frank was sure that there couldn't be a lot of variation among ghost fish.

"You could have done that all along?" Martin asked. Not even a 'thank you', the little ungrateful bother.

"Technically. But it works better if it's done in the right place."

"And I really wanted to see the fishies."

"Waaait," Screamo interrupted. He sounded both bored and confused – that is to say, exactly like most teenagers. "What just happened? I was out with my cool ghost shark friends! We were going to prank these tourist kids-"

" _Prank?_ " Martin sounded much too horrified for such a harmless admission. "I've been looking all over for you, and you were busy pulling pranks?"

"What a terrible waste of our time, young fish," said Frank. "You should be ashamed. Now go home so _we_ can go home."

"Wait a moment, Frank, dear. Perhaps we should hear him out."

"Hear – whyever should we do that?"

"Because if we don't fix this properly and it happens again, we'll end up dealing with our friend Martin. Again."

Ah. That _was_ a compelling argument. Frank emptied his glass as preparation, poured a new one, and moved things along.

"Very well, then. What is the problem here?"

"Nothing!" Martin said before Screamo could even open his mouth. "Everything is perfect, and we are just as happy as we have always been. We've been haunting this place just like this for years."

"Years, you say?" Sadie asked, in that tone she used when she need to breaks news gently to somebody.

"Yes. Decades, even."

"Which, in fish years, I believe converts to around _forever_ ," said Frank. "I'm back to the running away theory."

"But that makes no sense!"

"Uuuuh," Screamo said, with all the eloquence if his age group. "Actually. He's right, dad."

" _What_? You left on purpose? I thought you were happy!"

"I am happy! But I'm a teenager, dad. I need to have my own afterlife now."

"Perhaps you should give him a little space," Sadie advised. "That way he won't feel the need to do something quite so drastic."

"Would that work?" Martin asked, almost as if talking to himself. "Should I just let my dear Screamo grow up at last?"

" _Dad!_ " he complained. "I told you I hate that name! Why can't you call me Bob like my friends do?"

Frank stared at him. He knew teenagers were not the brightest, but this… this was something else.

"Bob? Really? That's not much of an improvement."

"Don't be so harsh, darling," Sadie chided him. Then she turned towards both fish again. "But he's right, you know."

"So what? I don't care what you think!" Screamo – no, _Bob_ said. "At least I picked this name myself! I never get to pick things."

"Ah! I see!" said Frank. "You have so little practice making decisions that you made a terrible one."

"Hey!" Martin floated between them and his son, looking about as menacing as a dead fish could, which wasn't much. "You're supposed to help my son, not mock him!"

"… Dad?" said Bob, very slowly. "Are you… are you _defending_ me?"

"Well – I know that you want to pick your own battles, but – "

"No, that was pretty cool! I liked it."

"Oooh!" Sadie exclaimed. "See what happened? See?"

There was a moment of confused silence. Then Bob gasped in surprise, once he had finally managed to add two and two together.

"We _bonded_!"

"Was that your plan all along?" asked Martin. "All this time, you were so annoying so I would feel the need to defend my Scre- Bob?"

"You see, in fact– "

"Of course!" Frank said cheerfully, before she could finish the sentence. There was nothing wrong with a little white lie once in a while, especially when it helped to wrap things up faster. "We're brilliant like that! And now we're going home."

"Wait, wait!" Bob said, nervous all of a sudden. "Does this mean I solved my unfinished business? I'm not ready to move on yet!"

"I believe you just answered your own question, dear," Sadie told him. "You still have a lot of new things to experience. And your father still has a lot to learn about you."

"I'm sure you both have many years of happy and annoying haunting to look forwards to," said Frank. "And I intend to not be around for any of it. Shall we go now, Sadie?"

"Of course. Look at them, floating away together like they already forgot all about us! I think we deserve a little something to forget ourselves."

"Right as always, my dear. To being left alone!" he said, as they raised their glasses to toast. Sadie grinned at him.

"And to us."


End file.
